Recent publications

From the publisher’s website: If you're one of the countless fans of ghost hunting TV shows itching to get off the couch and track some spirits on your own, this book provides everything you need to know to conduct a successful paranormal investigation.

Professional ghost hunter Rich Newman shares proven scientific methods, tried-and-true low-tech approaches, and the latest technology used by the pros. You'll learn what ghosts are, why hauntings occur, the different types of supernatural phenomena, and the importance of conducting responsible investigations. Find out how to form a team, interact with ghosts, gather and examine evidence — and what not to do when seeking spirits. Along with helpful hints, insider tips, and seasoned insights gained from Newman's decade of field work, Ghost Hunting for Beginners is peppered with true accounts of ghost stories from famous cases and the author's own investigations.

Rich Newman (Tennessee) has been investigating the paranormal for over ten years and is the founder of the group Paranormal Inc. He is also a filmmaker whose first feature film, a documentary called Ghosts of War, will be released in 2011. His articles have appeared in Haunted Times and Paranormal Underground.

From the publisher’s website: The conscious mind defines human existence. Many consider the brain as a computer, and they attempt to explain consciousness as emerging at a critical, but unspecified, threshold level of complex computation among neurons. The brain-as-computer model, however, fails to account for phenomenal experience and portrays consciousness as an impotent, after-the-fact epiphenomenon lacking causal power. And the brain-as-computer concept precludes even the remotest possibility of spirituality. As described throughout the history of humankind, seemingly spiritual mental phenomena, including transcendent states, near-death and out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories have recently been well documented and treated scientifically. In addition, the brain-as-computer approach has been challenged by advocates of quantum brain biology, who are possibly able to explain, scientifically, nonlocal, seemingly spiritual mental states.

Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship argues against the purely physical analysis of consciousness and for a balanced psychobiological approach. This thought-provoking volume bridges philosophy of mind with science of mind to empirically examine transcendent phenomena, such as mystic states, near-death experiences and past-life memories, that have confounded scientists for decades. Representing disciplines ranging from philosophy and history to neuroimaging and physics, and boasting a panel of expert scientists and physicians, including Andrew Newberg, Peter Fenwick, Stuart Hameroff, Mario Beauregard, Deepak Chopra, and Chris Clarke, the book rigorously follows several lines of inquiry into mind-brain controversies, challenging readers to form their own conclusions – or reconsider previous ones. It is essential reading for researchers and clinicians across many disciplines, including cognitive psychology, personality and social psychology, the neurosciences, neuropsychiatry, palliative care, philosophy, and quantum physics.

Professor Richard Wiseman is clear about one thing: paranormal phenomena don't exist. But in the same way that the science of space travel transforms our everyday lives, so research into telepathy, fortune-telling and out-of-body experiences produces remarkable insights into our brains, behaviour and beliefs. Paranormality embarks on a wild ghost chase into this new science of the supernatural and is packed with activities that allow you to experience the impossible. So throw away your crystals, ditch your lucky charms and cancel your subscription to Reincarnation Weekly. It is time to discover the real secrets of the paranormal.

Haunted Wales: A Guide to Welsh Ghostlore: ‘More ghosts and goblins I think were prevalent in Wales than in England or any other country.’ So wrote researcher William Howells way back in 1831 – and the author of this compelling collection believes he was right. Wales is a fearfully haunted place. It abounds in castles and mansions, ancient churches, lonely lanes and crossroads, even bare mountainsides which can lay claim to a resident spook or two. For the first time, this haunted heritage has been explored in depth. Richard Holland has carried out a careful study of original sources, delving into old books, journals, Eisteddfod transactions and unpublished essays. His research has revealed insights into Welsh folklore and resurrected ghost stories which have long been forgotten. The ghosts of Wales are of great age, their manners and appearance hinting at beliefs older than the oldest books. They are bold and memorable, striking in appearance, forceful in character, often terrifying and sometimes even dangerous. Prepare for a fascinating county-by-county tour of hundreds of ghostly encounters from one of the most haunted countries in the world.

Haunted Wales: A fascinating collection of ghost stories from all over Wales brought together by Peter Underwood, an acknowledged expert on the paranormal. This book covers not only more well-known hauntings but also some more recent, and highly surprising, sightings. In his wide and varied experience Peter has handled objects which were alleged to have been moved by paranormal means and heard a recording of reportedly paranormal music. Rather more significantly he has met and talked with many, many people who have either seen or heard or even felt a ghostly presence. Welsh folklore and daily life have long been visited by occult phenomenon. Told in chilling detail these stories will delight paranormal enthusiasts of all ages.

More Anglesey Ghosts: Bunty Austin has always been fascinated by ghosts. When she came to Anglesey (Mon) years ago, she was overwhelmed by the fund of such stories about people and places – and the matter of fact acceptance that there were such things. Being Celts, the islanders seemed to have strong psychic powers. Collecting stories about haunted houses, lanes on which ghost sightings were a part of everyday life and old memories passed down from generation to generation, fragmented experiences became a wealth of folklore over the years. More Anglesey Ghosts is a further selection from Bunty’s extensive collection of ghostly goings-on.

From the publisher’s website: Dictionaries say that dreams are a sequence of images from sleep. What is left out is that these images are recollections of something else. They are memories of experiences some fanciful some shatteringly real. When author Andrew Paquette first dreamed of the future he was able to avert a mugging that possibly saved his life. Over the course of the next twenty years he kept meticulous records of his dreams discovering in the process that future dreams are not only possible they are common. Even more importantly because of their quantity he was able to see that his dreams were not just isolated events but remembered snatches of a continuum of existence shared by everyone. In this groundbreaking book he destroys the myths of what dreams are how they are described what they mean and why they are or are not important.

From the publisher’s website: The study of the effect of "exceptional" experiences and beliefs on health--including anomalous, placebo, or hypnotic healing and mystical, religious, transpersonal, and creative experiences--has expanded and gained wider acceptance. This collection of essays explores the nature of mind, its impact on the body, and the relationship between "exceptional" experiences and physical health, mental health, and the potential for other types of perception. Examining the influence of spiritual practices, different types of mental imagery, and the practice of alternative healing methods such as reiki and johrei, the pieces propose ways of harnessing positive potential and encourage the expansion of mental health practice to include the full range of exceptional experiences. By normalizing experiences that are often pathologized, this book recognizes that exceptional human experiences can and do have value for physical and mental health.

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1. Overview and Exploration of the State of Play Regarding Health and Exceptional Experiences, by Christine Simmonds-Moore

Part one – Belief, Mind and Body

Chapter 2. The Mind-Body Connection and Healing, by John Gruzelier

Chapter 3. Altered States of Consciousness, Mental Imagery and Healing, by David Luke

Chapter 10. Counseling at the IGPP – An Overview, by Eberhard Bauer and Martina Belz

Chapter 11. Clinical Psychology for people with Exceptional Experiences in practice, by Martina Belz

Chapter 12. ‘Clinical Parapsychology’ in the UK, by Ian Tierney

About the editor: Christine Simmonds-Moore teaches in the department of psychology at the University of West Georgia and has received several Bial grants, given to promote exploration of a variety of topics pertinent to understanding exceptional experiences.

Stuart Cumberland (1857 – 1922) astonished Europe with his pioneer performances in mindreading, drawing acclaim and fame with miracles like finding hidden objects through supposed psychic power. A skilful writer, Cumberland (born Charles Garner) wrote several books on his life in mentalism and the techniques of phony mediums and psychics.

Our Stuart Cumberland: The Victorian Mind Reader CD brings you all of his rare mindreading publications, as well as several Cumberland-penned articles on mentalism and spiritualism, plus bonus books recounting his travels around the world.

With the help of mentalism historian Barry Wiley, we’ve also collected for you articles on his career from the Victorian press; his rare Cumberland News souvenir newspaper; and a complete Cumberland bibliography.

The CD includes over 2000 pages of material, all in convenient PDF format on CD with an index included for easy access.

From the publisher’s website: Can hands-on healing can cure cancer? Skeptics say no. One man’s research — in 10 controlled, university experiments with cancer-injected mice — shows that it does. This is a self-proclaimed skeptical scientist’s story.

With The Energy Cure, Dr. William Bengston presents astonishing evidence that challenges us to totally rethink what we believe about our ability to heal. Drawing on his scientific research, incredible results, and mind-bending questions, Bengston invites us to follow him along his 35-year investigation into the mystery of hands-on healing and to discover a technique that may activate your healing abilities. Part memoir and part instruction, this provocative book explores: Bengston's paradigm-shifting experimental results and why they seem so difficult for some medical practitioners to accept - Image cycling, a unique preparation method for a hands-on-healing treatment - Why traditional Western medicine isn't always best, the value of skepticism, the strengths of energy medicine, and more.

Spiritualism emerged in western New York in 1848 and soon achieved a wide following due to its claim that the living could commune with the dead. In Haunted Visions: Spiritualism and American Art, Charles Colbert focuses on the ways Spiritualism imbued the making and viewing of art with religious meaning and, in doing so, draws fascinating connections between art and faith in the Victorian age.

Examining the work of such well-known American artists as James Abbott McNeill Whistler, William Sydney Mount, and Robert Henri, Colbert demonstrates that Spiritualism played a critical role in the evolution of modern attitudes toward creativity. He argues that Spiritualism made a singular contribution to the sanctification of art that occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The faith maintained that spiritual energies could reside in objects, and thus works of art could be appreciated not only for what they illustrated but also as vessels of the psychic vibrations their creators impressed into them.

Such beliefs sanctified both the making and collecting of art in an era when Darwinism and Positivism were increasingly disenchanting the world and the efforts to represent it. In this context, Spiritualism endowed the artist's profession with the prestige of a religious calling; in doing so, it sought not to replace religion with art, but to make art a site where religion happened.

Charles Colbert teaches American art history at Portland State University. He is the author of A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America.

From the author’s website: Have you ever wondered where on earth your life is going? Are you trying to live a spiritual life but feeling lost? The gurus and teachers tell us that we are “guided” – but how can we recognise and understand this guidance? This remarkable book describes in detail hundreds of examples of synchronicities and prophetic dreams. For the first time, here is sound and documented evidence that every one of us can receive enuine spiritual guidance. This book asks profound questions about the true nature of human consciousness.

From the publisher’s website: In the silence of the night, in a remote room in a laboratory at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Naples, a small group of scientists meet to attend séances with Europe's most celebrated medium, Eusapia Palladino, a peasant woman whose mediumship has been dazzling Europe for decades. It is not the first time she has been subjected to tests, but it is the first time that she is being examined with the automated tools of orthodox scientific research, in an effort to produce an impartial and unbiased record of her activities.

As fascinating as a theatrical piece, this true life narrative has a riveting plot: scientists at the Institute of Physiology of the University of Naples, attempt to penetrate the troubling mysteries of the occult and come to grips with the phenomena of mediumship, its dynamics and possibilities.

Eight séances with the famous medium, Eusapia Palladino, are literally - sometimes humorously - described by the group's director, the distinguished Italian physiologist, Professor Filippo Bottazzi, one of the most authoritative researchers in Italy at the time.

And it is Bottazzi himself who, on the basis of the evidence obtained, proposes an explanation of the observed events based on his knowledge of physiology. All of this occurred more than a century ago, but the story remains fascinating - and relevant - to our own time.

Originally published in 1909 in Italian, this book has now been translated into English for the first time by Prof. Antonio Giuditta and Ms. Irmeli Routii.

From the official website: Narrated by Britains leading investigative journalist Donal MacIntyre, this award-winning documentary presents four never before seen scientific investigations into life after death. The Scole Experiment: For five years a group of researchers and mediums witnessed more phenomena than in any other experiment in the history of the paranormal, including recorded conversations with the dead, written messages on sealed film, video of spirit faces appearing and even spirit forms materializing. The Electronic Voice Phenomenon: Can the dead speak to the living via electronic devices like radios and tape recorders? Scientists investigating Italy's most famous medium, think so. Also famed psychic, Allison Dubois, the inspiration for the hit TV show Medium is put to the test. As our cameras roll, can she contact a leading Scole researcher who tragically died during the production of this film? These experiments may finally convince you there is life after death.

From the publisher’s website: Then, adding horror to horror, a pair of thin, long-fingered hands placed themselves on my stomach and proceeded to inch their way up my body. They crawled underneath my own hands resting on my chest. I gripped the bony fingers to push them away, but I couldn't - I was not strong enough. As they neared my throat, I thought I was about to die.

When the Slater family heard what sounded like a baby crying in their new house, they had no idea that it was the beginning of a terrifying haunting that would last for more than thirty years, and follow them across the city. This is their story.

Who’s There. The History Press, September 2008. ISBN-13: 978-0752448084

From the publisher’s website: What is the sixth sense? Is it physical, mental or spiritual? Do we all possess it or is it unique to exceptional individuals? Might there be a seventh sense and an eighth sense as well? What role does culture play in determining the range of our perceptual abilities?

The search for a supplementary sense has taken many directions and yielded numerous possibilities for an "additional faculty" of perception - from magnetism and movement to dreaming and clairvoyance. Stimulating reflection and debate, The Sixth Sense Reader explores the cultural contexts which give rise to such reports of "psychic" and other powers that exceed the ordinary bounds of sense.

In this groundbreaking volume, leading scholars in history, anthropology and biology take the reader on a tour of the far borderlands of consciousness. From the world beneath to the world beyond the five senses, every potential avenue of sensation is opened up for investigation.

From the publisher’s website: Country Books/Ashridge Press is a small independent publisher founded in 1985, specialising in local history titles.

Derbyshire books: Varying in length from one mile to ten, these are leisurely strolls rather than arduous hikes or robust rambles visiting an area that is rich in variety and fantastically spooky stories. It's a region that is much less visited than it deserves to be. It has large rural areas of great beauty, an interesting heritage and a rich history. There is much to be discovered and enjoyed, and plenty of paranormal presences too.

Brighton book: This book offers a choice of eight different walks which explore not only the famous Lanes and Pavilion area, but other less well known parts of the City.